


Anchors

by Victopteryx



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Other, Possession, Thieves Guild, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 19:17:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19340911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victopteryx/pseuds/Victopteryx
Summary: There is a hole in the world. The Dovahkiin's working on it.





	1. Thieves, Docks, and Shitty Old Papers

**Author's Note:**

> who out here's even still reading skyrim fanfic in the year of our lord 2019?
> 
> tags will be updated as needed.

Once upon a time, there was a hole in the world.

It wasn't a big hole. As a matter of fact, it was about the size of a nail head.

Unfortunately, this was enough.

Imagine a dock. Sleek wooden boats bob sedately between stone piers, as the river slowly scabs over in ice. An Argonian is arguing with a guard. A thief almost misses his chance. A foreman is trying to reconcile his inventory with what he sees before him.

On the far end of the pier, past the fishing nets, past the door to an unclaimed warehouse, where the walkway thins and presses close against the city walls, stands a masked figure.

Your name is Saarthis. You are staring at something written on a scrap of vellum. You are staring so intently that you almost miss the delicate brush of fingers at your waist.

You sigh. "Do you know who I am?"

The thief freezes.

You look at him through the slits in your mask. He's young, but not too young. He's a human - a Nord? You can make out the broken curve of his nose, a mouth slack with surprise.

"Like, I'm not wearing the armor, I get it, but someone should've told you it's a bad idea to rob your guildmaster."

The thief didn't respond. His jaw tightened, his hand clenched into a fist, and before you can blink, he's vanished around the corner. You can almost hear his footsteps racing up the stairs to the city gate.

He didn't take anything. It's not like you carry much on you, these days.

You turn your attention back to the vellum. It's old - almost as old as the weathered stones under your feet - and densely covered with thin, dark lines.

There are many ancient and wise beings in Tamriel. The Moth Priests have trained to read the very etchings of fate, the Elder Scrolls; the Greybeards receive wisdom directly from Kyne; the Augur of Dunlain reached knowledge so obscure he lost sight of his own mortality.

None of these things would recognize what you held in your hand. The common them among the the Moth Priests, the Greybeards, and even the Augur of Dunlain, is that they draw their wisdom from the current of the world; from the thrum of  the old and timeless mechanism that steers the tides of fate and writes secrets on the eyelids of blind prophets.

The vellum itself is inconsequential. It's what was written on it that makes it unique. The fragment is a torn piece of a greater work; a scrawl of lines marking a map that spirals into a sharp vortex. The rest of the work is fluff, chaff. The piece you have is the only one that matters. You know this because you were the one that ripped it off of the whole.

Once upon a time, a man named Daclius put his pen to paper, and, seeking to write a poem to give his beloved for their anniversary, penned an incomprehensible wreckage of broken lines and half-correct prophecies. It was entirely illegible. Daclius was found catatonic on the floor of his family home, and awoke a year later with no memory of writing it.

The manuscript, thought to be magical in nature, was sent to the Arcane University. The Guildmaster recognized a symbol used among the tribes in Elsweyr, and sent it to an Imperial contact among the tribes. Heshar ri-Katharna, a battlemage and scholar, accepted the scroll with great decorum. Recognizing nothing of value whatsoever, he almost immediately sold it to an Altmeri spellsword for an outrageous price. The spellsword sold it to the mages in the Crystal Tower for double that price. The mages fought for months over what it could mean, plumbing depths of ancient knowledge and compiling references to works that had long since slipped out of history. They would never come to a conclusion. The manuscript was stolen from the Crystal Tower and all but vanished from public view, only reappearing in the hands of the Psijic order four years later.

The Imperial scholars thought it was some foreign drivel, a superstitious ode to an esoteric tribal god. The Khajiiti thought it was the ravings of a lunatic. The Altmeri recognized some kind of power in it, and drove each other mad trying to unlock its secrets. Aside from the Psijics, whose opinions are all but unknowable, no one had guessed correctly.

Daclius was not mad, nor was he possessed, nor was he a mage of some great, (deeply) hidden potential. Daclius had simply been in the right place at the right time - namely, fifty feet above the exact spot where a piece of reality crumpled in on itself, and ripped away.

You, right now, are standing on a pier looking at a map penned under the influence of a tiny pinprick of a lack of the world.

It would make your head spin, if you hadn't been working towards this goal for the better part of a decade.

You reach into your bag, looking for a soul gem. This particular soul gem you enchanted yourself - it glows with a deep purple light. Every once in a while, you can hear noises emanate from it. This soul gem is the fruit of a year-long collaboration with your associate, and it's critical to the completion of your task here.

It's also not in your bag.

How - you can't have _dropped_ it, it must be -

Oh, right. You were robbed.

You absolute _moron._

You swear loudly enough to startle the nearby dock workers, stuff the vellum back into your robes, and all but fly up the stairs to the city.


	2. Old Friends

You wouldn’t call yourself wrathful. As a matter of fact, compared to most of the denizens of Skyrim these days, you’re practically a pacifist. You generally don’t condone senseless acts of violence. You don’t murder people without good reason. You even managed to negotiate a peace between the Imperials and the Stormcloaks! (You’re working on a more long-term solution for _that_ particular conflict.)

However, as dusk settled on Windhelm, you felt a blind sort of fury fill your chest.

You didn’t even threaten him! You let him walk away – his own _Guildmaster!_ Some days, you understood Mercer Frey’s motivations a little too clearly for your own comfort. You’re going to have to start taking a firmer hand with these people. _No_ respect.

You reach Niranye’s door and bang on it fiercely.

“Niranye!” You holler. “By Oblivion, I _will_ knock this door down – “

It opens.

“For the love of the Divines, please, just get in here,” Niranye’s beautiful face is pinched with anxiety. “What did I do? What do you want this time?”

“Have you seen a thief this evening? Not _me_ ,” You preemptively cut her off, peevishly. “Another one. Human, short? Maybe a Nord? Broken nose.”

Niranye pauses. “No,” she says at last. “No, the only… client… I’ve had today was Garthar.” Her voice dips lower. “It’s not another rival Guild, is it? Someone trying to muscle in on our territory?”

She’s fishing for information. A bit poorly, too. You sigh. “It was a wild hope. I don’t think it’s another Guild. Can you do me a favor, and let me know if anyone tries to pawn you an odd-looking soul gem?”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” she says wryly, folding her arms.

Good enough, you think, and leave without another word.

You might’ve been exaggerating a bit before. The soul gem isn’t essential to your task. It’s just going to make everything so unnecessarily complicated if you can’t confer with your associate while you do it.

The soul gem lets you talk to your accomplice, if that wasn’t obvious.

You’re still mad. You’ve worked so hard to get to this point, and if things are as dire as your compatriot insists they are, it’s probably going to continue being a royal pain the ass for the foreseeable future. You don’t need the added difficulty of petty theft to add to your concerns.

You stop a nearby guard. You’re wearing a mask – and you’re Thane, for Stendarr’s sake. You’ll be fine.

“I’d like to report a robbery,” you say in your best “Respectable Citizen” voice.

The guard snorts. “Oh, I’m sure you would,” he says, and shoulders past you.

Unfortunately, even your best “Respectable Citizen” voice still sounds like a Dark Elf.

Fine. Whatever. It’s _fine._ You lift your mask enough to rub at your face vigorously for a brief moment. If the tides of fate bring you to that thief again, you’ll simply find out who he sold the gem to before you rend his head from his shoulders. It’ll be fine!

In the meantime, you still have work to do.

You return to the docks with the vellum in hand. The lines did not stop being a tangled mess as the sun sank below the horizon, and you conjure a small, steady magelight over your shoulder as you peer at the scrawl. It says it should be _right here_. _Right here_ is, unfortunately, a blank brick wall. Underneath you is a narrowing strip of stone slate, and behind you is a half-frozen, slushy riverbank. There’s _nothing here._

You feel like screaming. You can’t see anything. Absolutely nothing about this wall looked out of the ordinary. If reality was supposed to come apart here, it wasn’t going to do so any time soon. If you’re entirely honest with yourself, you’re not even sure what you’re supposed to be looking for. Your ally would know. He has an eye for this kind of bullshit. You told him that once, and he dourly informed you that his eyes had rotted away almost three thousand years ago. He’s a cheerful fellow.

Nothing for it. You can’t figure this mess out on your own, and if you want to stop the world breaking apart at the seams, you’re going to need, if not another pair of physical eyes, then the breadth of knowledge an eternity in Apocrypha provides.

Gjalund’s boat is making its way towards Solstheim before Secunda even crests the ocean.

 

* * *

 

 

Solstheim has seen better days. To be fair, it’s doing a sight better since you broke the mind control, eradicated the ash spawn, reopened the ebony mines, and safely tucked away all the Black Books littered around the place – but still, it’s a bit of a wreck nonetheless. You haven’t found a way to stop the ash storms erupting from the Red Mountain, but you’ll get to it eventually.

Your return to Solstheim is not for the giant mushrooms, nor the charming Redoran settlements, nor the equally charming but much colder Skaal village. You disembark the Northern Maiden and head directly for the ancient ruins of a temple in the center of the island.

The entire place is deserted. Dozens of empty eye sockets follow you as you climb the shattered steps to the plateau. A chill wind whips through the enormous pillars surrounding the temple’s edge.

You set your bag down with a thump, and sit cross-legged in the center of the circle. You don’t bother to erect a ward, or set traps for beasts. You won’t be waking up for a while, but you’re fairly certain your body will be in… well, if not good, then at least _competent_ hands.

You close your eyes.

You take a deep breath.

And you _dive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are all pretty short chapters so far, lol. this might change in the future


	3. Fractured Memories

Miraak opens his eyes, draws in a deep breath, and smiles.

It was a peculiar arrangement, to be sure, but then, so was being trapped in an unholy library for nearly four millennia. Peculiar arrangements lost their glamour after a while, and just became normal arrangements. Sharing a body was a lot easier when you are, essentially, sharing the same soul.

The Dovahkiin, it seems, had been in a hurry. She neglected to leave him a note telling him what exactly the problem was, so now he has to do some investigation. _Wonderful_.

Miraak rises to his feet and stretches, a luxuriously long and slow movement. The world might be tearing itself asunder, but there’s no harm in enjoying corporeality while it lasts, right?

This collaboration had not been planned at first. The Dovahkiin had, nearly fifteen years ago at this point, fallen asleep within the boundaries of his temple. Miraak’s soul, weathered by its time in a Daedric realm, did not dissolve into the morass of power like all the others. As soon as it had the chance, it claimed Saarthis’s limbs for its own – resulting in a very confused Miraak drawing breath in the mortal realm for the first time in living memory.

He had felt a lot of emotions in a very short period of time - about two minutes – which was as long as it took him to climb, unsteadily, to his feet and make his way to the temple entrance. The minute his foot crossed the boundary, Saarthis was slammed back in control. She fell down the temple steps.

Deduction, carefully placed chalk lines, and eventually written notes ended up telling her the whole story. Curious by nature, she began willingly collaborating with Miraak – how long could the possession last? Did he have access to his powers? How close to the edge of the temple could he get before he lost control?

They developed a way for Saarthis to relinquish control willingly, in almost a trance-like state. She would let him get close to the edge, see the birds flying overhead, listen to the wind rustling the trees. She had once let him sit there, drinking in the physicality of Mundus, for an entire week.

Miraak was once again caged, but at least this time his handler was willing to let him peer through the bars on occasion.

When Saarthis awoke a week later, it was to a detailed list of instructions, and a thick, leather-bound tome that smelled like metal and oil. Miraak didn’t say how he got his hands on the book, and Saarthis didn’t ask.

The tome detailed the history of wards around the Isle of Artaeum, and a catalogue of entry points known to the Psijic monks. The instructions were in reference to a specific manuscript contained in their library.

_How do you know about this?_ Saarthis had written on the corner of the parchment.

Miraak’s reply, upon her awakening, was: _Apocrypha is the place where all knowledge is hoarded. Did you think that precluded the Psijics?_

Miraak, Saarthis had come to discover, was a bit of a smart-ass at times.

Currently, he is ruffling around in the bag Saarthis had discarded on the rippled floor. He finds the problem almost immediately – the soul gem is gone. Did she lose it? It must be why she’s returned in person.

Frustrated, Miraak pulls out a roll of paper from her sack and scrawls a message.

He then sets the paper down in front of himself, closes his eyes, and sinks back into the void.

 

* * *

 

 

You feel pressure lifting, as if you’re swimming towards the surface of a deep lake, and can’t help but sucking in an eager lungful of air as you open your eyes. There’s a note in front of you.

_You lost the soul gem? We will need another one to recreate it, you know this._

Of course you didn’t _lose_ it, it was _stolen,_ there’s a _difference_. You’re honestly a bit miffed he thinks you would be so careless with something that took you that much effort to make. You’re also a bit annoyed he didn’t think to check your robes before handing the reins back to you. Due diligence, wuth mun.

You place the glittering, new soul gem firmly on top of the paper and close your eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

For the second time that night, Miraak finds himself abreast the World of Men. There’s a soul gem sitting on top of his note. She must’ve had another bag somewhere, he reasons.

The spell took a long time to develop. His grasp of the School of Conjuration was more firmly rooted in a time before the School of Conjuration _existed_ ; not to mention, his frame of reference was still more or less calibrated for Apocrypha. They had needed to clarify some embarrassingly simple definitions with each other before they could even approach the kind of project they were planning. For example, back in his day, a soul gem was more like a soul boulder, and it took some convincing to prove that such a small rock could be equally – in fact, more – effective than the stones he was familiar with. The time it took to define what “soul” meant in this context doesn’t bear speaking of. There was also the matter that Miraak only really understood how to discuss magical concepts in Dovahzul, and –

It had taken a lot of trial and error.

But now that they know the spell, it’s really a pretty simple process.

Miraak’s blood drips on the soul gem with a delicate patter. He whispers a few words, folds the essence of his will in just the right way, and twists oh-so-gently on the threads connecting his soul to this realm.

It’s not like he’s in any danger of accidentally soul trapping himself. Even if he was in his own body, this gem would hardly be big enough for the soul of a dovah.

The gem flares brilliant purple. It’s Saarthis’s turn.

 

* * *

 

 

You surface, you breathe, you bleed on the rock and you shake it until the purple light fades to something closer to indigo.

You tiredly tap it a couple of times. “Hello?”

“I tire of bleeding on things for you, Dovahkiin,” comes the surly response.

“I reached the first location,” you say, ignoring Miraak’s whining. He’s suffered worse. A few drops of blood aren’t going to kill him. You know this from experience.

“And?”

“And nothing, it’s a brick wall. Do you know the city of Windhelm?”

“Perhaps. Where is it?”

“On the mouth of the Yorgrim River, as it leads into the Sea of Ghosts.”

“I knew of a city in such a place. The map led you there?”

“It led me to the far end of the docks and a brick wall. Like I said, there’s _nothing there_.”

“Show me.” With that, the light dims from the stone. Apparently Miraak was done talking.

Honestly, if he wasn’t so bloody helpful, you probably would’ve tried harder to digest his soul a long time ago.

You gather your things and make your way back down to Raven Rock. You do not realize it at the time, but you've been at the temple for close three days.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to you, something deep in the core of Windhelm changes. A ripple becomes a crease, and the crease becomes a tear. A sparrow flies across the dock, and lands as a robin. The robin has always been a robin. The sparrow never was.

Your fingers run nervously across the scrap of vellum as Gjalund's ship rocks through the waves.


End file.
